The Sino-German Legal Programme supports an institutionalised bilateral exchange between the two countries aimed at fostering the rule of law and improving the applicability of legal standards.

Advisory services for the judiciary

The Sino-German Legal Cooperation programme supports the education and training of Chinese judges and teaching staff in judicial practice methods.

Commercial law

The Sino-German Legal Cooperation programme supports the training of Chinese civil servants in various branches of commercial law to improve legal certainty and transparency.

Legal awareness and lawyers

The objective of the field of activity is to increase the awareness of individual citizens for their rights and to strengthen the various ways available of upholding these in court.

Introduction

On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Sino-German Legal Cooperation programme in Beijing has been supporting the reform of the legislative, executive and judiciary systems in the People’s Republic of China since 1986. The overarching objective is to improve the judiciary-institutional framework needed to transform the People’s Republic of China into a social market economy that is more firmly anchored in rule-of-law structures. Increased legal certainty benefits not only Chinese citizens but also German and international investors.
The programme is part of the Sino-German Rule of Law Dialogue initiated in 2000, and supports it with numerous activities.

Initial situation

China’s rapid economic rise in recent decades has brought with it new social challenges. That is one of the reasons why policymakers are endeavouring to establish an efficient and fair legal system. The reformed legal system should help to shape and guide the socio-economic developments of recent decades without conflict. However, the process has yet to be completed. Elements of the legal system still need to be revised. In the legislative system, this applies particularly to coherence and systematic consistency within individual fields of law. There is also a need for improvement as regards the standardisation of decisions and rulings by the executive and the judiciary. Gaps in expertise in judicial practice lead to the same matters being treated differently in some cases and to the emergence of regional differences in judicial and executive practice. As a consequence, citizens often do not trust the public administration and the judiciary system with their concerns, especially given the lack of the population’s understanding of the legal system and how to access the administration and the courts.

Objectives

The programme’s fundamental objective is to improve the institutional and social frameworks for China’s transformation into a nation grounded in the rule of law.

Impacts

Central legislative projects have been supported with expert advisory services aimed at instilling rule of law principles. Given the importance for China’s future socio-economic development, special attention was paid to the advancement of Chinese civil law (property act, tort act, rules of civil procedure, etc.), labour and social law (labour contract act, social security act, etc.), administrative law (administrative procedure act), as well as environmental and climate law.
More than 9,000 judges from across the entire People’s Republic of China have received training that enables them to successfully apply judicial practice methods based on the German model. The training material developed by the programme and the training courses held with the Chinese partners have now become a fixed element of the training offered by the National Judges College.
Specially tailored training courses (covering administrative procedure law, intellectual property law, etc.) for various target groups within the administration have served to improve the implementation of rule-of-law principles in public authorities and complaints/appeal facilities.